Shamers on the Prowl in Social Media Jungle 1 August 2015

Shamers on the prowl in social media jungle 1 August 2015

The killing of a Zimbabwean lion by an American 'Troublemaker' dentist is a vivid reminder of how, in this era of social media, it's a virtual jungle out there. Many of her 174 Twitter followers were friends, and she clearly identified herself in her online profile as Big game hunter Walter Palmer joins a growing list a "troublemaker on the side" with a "loud laugh." of individuals—famous and not so famous—who have been publicly, even ruthlessly shamed on But Sacco instantly became a global laughing Twitter and Facebook, the village stocks of the stock, awash in a tsunami of blistering tweets that 21st century. only intensified when she got off her 11-hour flight, discovered what was happening and apologized. "He needs to be extradited, charged and preferably hanged" for slaying game park lion Cecil, said Even businesses and charities jumped on the animal rights group PETA in one particularly bandwagon. By one estimate Google made up to scathing tweet. $468,000 off the Internet traffic it generated, according to British writer Jon Ronson. "I hope you burn in hell," echoed several other Twitter users as #CecilTheLion became this past "You can lead a good ethical life, but some bad week's hashtag du jour. phraseology in a tweet can overwhelm it all," said Ronson, author of "So You've Been Publicly Stoning, torture, even being fed to the lions were Shamed," in a TED talk in London in June. further suggestions posted online as Palmer went to ground and Zimbabwe called for his extradition. In a sense, the Internet has stirred a revival of medieval-style public humiliation, a fixture of "Public shaming through social media is clearly a puritanical 17th century American colonial life. way that people in our society informally 'punish' those who violate the rules, even if the rules of our The difference is that shamers today can shame society aren't law," said Lori Brown, a sociology anonymously, behind the mask of bogus identities. professor at Meredith College in North Carolina. And there is no need to turn up in person at the village green to join the baying mob. "It is similar to the public stocks and just like that kind of punishment, some are content with simply New York University environmental studies ridiculing the person, but others may want to throw professor Jennifer Jacquet said shaming has value things or even harm this person," she told AFP. as a useful tool for advancing political change and social reform. "So there is the dangerous or potentially cruel edge to this kind of public shaming." But Jacquet, author of "Is Shame Necessary? New Uses for an Old Tool," wonders if 2015 is the year Some have found themselves in the crosshairs of that shaming has reached its peak. social media shaming by discovering the hard way that humor doesn't travel well in a 144-character "We really do have this pile-up of victims where we tweet. go, 'Mmm, maybe we went a little overboard'," she told AFP in a telephone interview. "Going to Africa. Hope I don't get AIDS. Just kidding. I'm white!" New York PR executive Justine Here to stay Sacco famously quipped before flying off to Cape Town in 2013. "Shame is never going to go away. I think the real

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question is how we use it in society to good ends that the general broader democracy can support."

Vanitha Swaminathan, a University of Pittsburgh marketing professor, said the reputational consequences of online shaming can be so severe that it may look out of proportion to whatever prompted it.

"On the flip side, the speed at which these transgressions achieve prominence and fade away suggests that while social media backlash may seem very harsh, social media's attention span is also narrow," she said.

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